Happy to have you here, Amy. Tell us your story, how did you got started modeling and where is your home at the moment?
I was scouted by a photographer at a shopping mall, when I was a teenager. Luckily, he was the real thing, not a creep (my Dad attended my first few shoots, to ensure I was safe). I then entered pageants, got some print and runway work throughout high school and college, and started glamour/fitness/implied/fashion modeling when I moved to Los Angeles for graduate school, a couple of decades ago. I’ve been doing that since! Currently, my home is in Los Angeles. I travel quite a bit, but I’m there about half the time.
Tell us more about yourself. What else do you do next to modeling?
I’m a commercially licensed pilot; I’ve flown cargo and charter, and taught flight students. I enjoy marksmanship, SCUBA diving, snow skiing, polo, tennis, golf, fitness, spending time with family and friends, and plenty of time snuggling my tiny dog.
What do you love most about being a model? And, what do you least enjoy?
What I love most is working with creative crew. Their process fascinates me, since I’m more of a science and tech-minded geek at heart. Of course I love the fashion, makeup and hair (what woman doesn’t like being made up to look gorgeous?). And I love producing content that makes people happy…the world needs more beauty and less anger.
What is the most challenging being a model?
The tired, icky biases in the modeling industry. I’m bored by the so-passé preference for one age, height, weight, physical look, and style of models and their images. It’s just not interesting. The business professes progressivism, but some really judgy and not-so-great people in it cling desperately to ideas of beauty that are, well, just not interesting enough to capture attention these days. Come on, folks! Let’s stop being lame. Yawn.
If you could change something in the modeling world, what would it be?
See above. More diversity. Let customers see themselves in images. Let there be a wider definition of beauty. There’s room for everyone; Mother Nature favors diversity, I’m sure we humans can learn to do so too. I believe it’s changing, albeit too slowly.
What fuels your imagination and provides you with inspiration?
Travel, and by proxy, learning. Experiencing the new. Seeing new cultures, hearing new discussions in new languages, tasting new foods & living new lives in new places. I’m inspired by this wide world’s myriad offerings, and I feel most creative and happy when I’m part of something new to me.
What keeps you excited about life in general?
It’s brevity. That’s scary at times, but also liberating. Everything’s precious and yet none of this matters that much; what a conundrum! Therefore, the goal is to enjoy. Life is a beautiful flash of light, and I’m excited about enjoying it as much as I can, before it sparks out into nothingness again. That life is a short ride, both terrifies and excites me.
Looking back how has modeling experience changed your personal/professional life? Have you grown more comfortable with yourself since you have started?
Modeling has afforded me the chance to live independently, see the world, meet and work with people I’d never have met otherwise, provide for myself, and hold a standard I couldn’t have dreamed of without this business. However, it has also required hard work that perhaps came before relationships, as everything was a mistress to my marriage to my work. I’m comfortable with my choices; I couldn’t have been happy any other way. However, sometimes I wonder what life would’ve been like, being a suburban housewife instead, haha. OK not really. 😆
What kind of life would you like to have?
Exactly the life I do have. Free yet disciplined, exciting but not exhausting, independent but social, comfortable but not out of touch, balanced but never boring. I’ve engineered the existence I always dreamt of, and I’m quite happy with life as it is. I’d be content to rinse and repeat, for the rest of my days.
What are the achievements you are proud of most of today?
I’m proud of having gotten my undergraduate degree in biology and my MBA; I’m proud of having worked in biotech (even though I didn’t enjoy it) and oil (enjoyed that even less). I’m proud of being financially self-sufficient, of giving back to my community, of standing up for the stigmatized and weak among us, of speaking truth to power in the many instances in which our society is wrong, and of never taking “no” for an answer. I’m a pushy bitch, haha…I can’t be any other way. Bitches get stuff done.
Where can our readers keep up with your work and get connected with you?
Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest: @AmyTaylorLA
TikTok: @AmyTaylorCA
SnapChat: @AT-SoCal
Model: Amy Taylor @amytaylorla
Photographer: Julia Mindar @juliamindarphoto
Wardrobe Stylist: Daniel Alamillo
Makeup Artist: Melissa Wonder @melissawonder_